Part Of The Bernie Problem

Mimi Rocah's taking some heat about her comments on MSNBC, saying "Bernie makes my skin crawl."

That seems a bit harsh, but there's something that's always bugged me about Bernie too. 

I voted for him in the Virginia primary in 2016, but the bloom is off that rose now. It's not that he's become something bad, it's just that I think he's served his purpose - he's made it OK for Dems to show themselves taking the "lefty" positions they need to take.

That's what I've always thought Bernie's job was. It's what I think Hillary and Debbie and Donna figured would be part of a good way to move "left", but maintain the option to do the usual "hippie-punching" whenever they needed to calm the more conservative elements of the Dem Party - the Claire McCaskills and Joe Manchins.

Anyway, I think it mostly worked, even though the Bernie Bros wouldn't let it go when it was time to get back together and make things happen in the general election.

BTW - we know now that a lot of those Bernie Bros may well have been largely spurred on by Bernie Bots, assuming most of them weren't actually Bernie Bots and Trolls and Ghost Accounts.  We don't know nearly enough about that shit yet.

But back to Mimi and the "something ain't quite right with that Bernie guy" meme.

Behold, a GIF:

Bernie gets all gesture-y and Abby Huntsman tries to get him out of her space. Bernie's reaction to her objection has the earmarks of a guy who's being dismissive of her, as he seems to be playing the victim, and then trying to recover by blowing it all off with a smile - almost like he's trying to be self-deprecating, but failing at it.

It ends up as: Bernie, rebutting some nonsense from Stephen Moore, and basically telling Huntsman she doesn't matter.

It's a very bad look in retrospect. I didn't see it that way at the time. Rocah's tweet prompted me to go back and re-watch some stuff, and apply some context.

We're in a different place now. Our "manly" behavior is far more closely scrutinized, and we're just gonna hafta get used to the fact that women aren't putting up with that shit now, and many more of them are willing to get in your face because of it.

On the whole - I'll call it progress and try to figure out how to go with it.